What is a Good Average Landing Page Conversion Rate in 2018?

Average Conversion Rate

The average conversion rate falls around 2.35%. The top 25% sites are converting at 5.31% and above, while the top 10% are looking at 11.45% and above. But, it’s important to realize factors like your industry, product or service, and your target audience all weigh in on your ability to convert visitors into leads.

With no clear picture of whether or not you're on the right track, it's easy to feel stuck. So, to help unstick you, we've decided to shed some light on the situation and address the all-too-common question - "what is a good landing page conversion rate?"

We've also collected five examples of landing page elements worth experimenting with if you find that it's time to get your numbers up.

The truth about landing page conversion rates

They're subjective.

Factors like your industry, product or service, and your target audience all weigh in on your ability to convert visitors into leads, and leads into customers.

However, I'm fully aware that people love their numbers, so I dug up some insights from WordStream to shine a little data on the situation:

The chart above reveals that the average conversion rate falls around 2.35%. The keyword here is average.

A closer look reveals that the top 25% are converting at 5.31% and above, while the top 10% are looking at 11.45% and above, but, it’s important to realize this graphic is focusing on conversion rate on the account as a whole, not single landing pages.

So we know what the benchmark is for a website, but what about a landing page alone?

In this report, Unbounce studied the performance of 74.5 million visits to more than 64,000 lead generation landing pages created within its platform by Unbounce customers. The landing pages spanned across 10 different industries (travel, real estate, business consulting, business services, credit/lending, health, higher education, home improvement, legal, and vocational studies/job training).

What it uncovered was truly interesting.

The best conversion rate varied significantly across all the industries, while median conversion rate hovered between 3-5.5%.

But, as I mentioned earlier, your conversion rate will still vary due to the type of industry you're in, the offers you put out, and your audience's behavior.

After seeing this data, you may realize your conversion rate numbers either aren't where they need to be, or better yet, have room for improvement.

I recently came across a quote during one of my Pinterest-binges that lends itself really well to this situation:

"Why settle for average when amazing is attainable?"

So while the average median conversion rate of all 10 industries hover around 4%, the businesses within those who stand out are the ones that refuse to settle.

To help inspire your business to rise up, we've put together some landing page improvement tips aimed at turning a good conversion rate into an amazing one:

1) Clearly Convey the Value

Many of us create fantastic content for our readers that quickly become meaningless because it’s hidden behind a call-to-action (CTA) that provides no value to your users.

When users come across a CTA, they need to immediately see the gain of clicking it. If that value isn’t clear enough, users instead concern themselves not with what they are gaining, but the cost of clicking.

What You Need to Do

Don’t focus on copy that explains what the user needs to do to receive your content. Instead, use copy that outlines the benefits the offer has and the pain points it relieves. Make sure the value of clicking outweighs the cost.

Also, be explicit in the copy you use on your button. Button copy like ‘Submit’ or ‘Buy It’ are extremely generic and vague.

‘Submit’ masks what the action is and leaves users wondering what they are actually receiving on that next page. ‘Buy’ is just as bad and reminds users that there is the next step of actually having to pay for something, causing them to forget about value over cost.

Examples

Writework experimented with changing their call-to-action at the bottom of their essays from ‘Read Full Essay Now’ to ‘Get Instant Access Now’. Although the later was more actionable, it failed to mention what they were getting access to. This led to a 39% decrease in their conversion rate. Yikes!

What Unbounce does really well is leveraging its value proposition to ensure that all of their visitors can easily identify the benefit of using Unbounce landing pages.

Rather than a button that just says ‘learn more’, Unbounce explicitly says what they will see and learn about on the next page.

2) Reduce Risk

According to Dr. Robert Cialdini, a psychology professor at Arizona State University, “People see an action as more appropriate when others are doing it.”

Depending on the action users need to fulfill to receive the benefit, adding something extra to assure their information is safe, or that others have also participated helps users feel more comfortable.

What You Need to Do

People are risk-averse. It means “most people would prefer a sure outcome than to take a risk at something that has potentially higher value.”

So although the value you are converting may be high, if they don’t feel there is a guaranteed value behind their conversion, then they won’t convert.

In an effort to make people feel more comfortable about taking next steps, consider the benefit of including a testimonial or alternative bit of social proof on your landing page.

If you are selling a product, buyer testimonials or badges that assure safe, virus-free transactions are some relievers.

Examples

Bidsketch not only puts a testimonial front and center on their homepage, but makes sure it supports the value proposition and outlines a potential benefit of signing up. Knowing you can save time saves money is a pretty compelling statement.

iCouponBlog saw a 400% increase in its conversion rate by adding the ‘Secure’ badge above the fold in their sidebar. This assured users that clicking the 'use coupon' button wasn't going to be downloading anything malicious on their computer.

[First is the control, next is the variable.]

3) Leverage Scarcity and Urgency

Scarcity is the feeling that a product is in short supply and that a short period of time, it will run out.

But scarcity alone isn’t the key to creating that demand. It’s a combination of the value of that item as well as trust within the vender that that deal will ceace when the deadline hits or the quantity hits 0.

What You Need to Do

The first thing you need to do it pick what will drive that urgency.

This could be the deadline for a sale, the quantity of a product you have, the end date of a program you’re running, etc.

Then, you need to stick to it.

Depending on the audience's level of interest in the offer, do not extend the deadline of when you can receive it, or worse, change the quality left of it. This will break down trust between you and the people converting since it now seems you’ve lied to them to entice them. You can however, extend it if you notice conversions are very low, and you want to experiment with tactics to increase conversions on it, but be wary of doing so.

Once you have your offer, dates, and/or quantity is set, it's all up to you how you want to present it.

Make sure you make any elements that promote the urgency obvious enough so there is a distinction between the normal deal. You can start doing this by using keywords such as promote urgency are ‘now’, instant’, ‘hurry’, etc. Red also tends to be a ideal color psychologically to get the user's attention to act.

Examples

He found that, while the same number of people signed up for the 14-day trial as they did the 30-day trial, 102% more people used the product when they signed up for the 14-day trial.

Amazon has also mastered this principle by creating urgency when there are low quantities of items. And to add a little more value, they also sneak in the copy below that specifies how much time you have left if you need the item immediately.

So long as Amazon doesn’t disappoint with the arrival time of one-day shipped packages, people will know to put their trust in that time frame when ordering in the future too.

4) Eliminate Distractions

As the optimizer, it is your job to make sure you are drawing your users attention to the most desired action on the page, almost like a magician.

As CopyHackers Joanna Wiebe explains, “magicians manage your attention by compelling you to notice what they want you to notice. Once they have your attention, they can adjust your perception to make you focus on something…”

Once you know what users should focus on, you need to use the way you lay it out, color, and form on your website to attract users.

What You Need to Do

First, you need to figure out your most wanted action. To do so, ConversionXL recommends you ask two questions:

What’s the action you want your visitors to take most?

What action do your visitors want to take most?

These two questions help you make sure that the action you are choosing is realistic and aligns with what your audience is doing.

For example, say you want your users to subscribe to your blog, yet, you only ever show the subscribe CTA at the bottom of blog articles. Due to its placement, most people are probably focusing on the blog article, and aren't scrolling to the end to see it.

You need to make sure you are giving users the ability to focus their attention on the right spot. If it’s not easily accessible, or obvious, no one's going to convert.

Examples

By keeping the design of their landing page minimal, Codecademy is able to place an emphasis on their form and call-to-action.

Notice that they've eliminated the navigation to ensure that visitors won't wander off the page, but rather stick around to convert.

Hotjar does a really good job minimizing distractions by highlighting the slider with red and matching the selected value with a red button, gray background, and a check mark next to the plan below it.

5) Reduce Friction

According to Dan Zarrella, your conversion rate improves by almost half when the number of form fields is reduced from four fields to three.

It all comes back to value, if you find yourself creating a 10-field form for a standard eBook, chances are filling it out will not outweigh the value received on that eBook.

What You Need to Do

Friction can come in many different forms, but one of the most common problems tends to be with how forms are structured and organized.

First, make sure you consider the value of the offer; is it a webinar, one Ebook, ten Ebooks? Then, brainstorm the value and benefits the offer(s) will bring your users.

You can then use this value to begin formulating how many fields, and what types, to show your user.

One ideal strategy when deciding this is to go a field or two less than the value, rather than trying to match it. This technique can impress your users if they recognize they don't need to do as much on their end to recieve your offer, leading to more conversions.

Above all, make it easy for your users to figure out what they need to do, and don’t hit them with barriers that lead their expectations astray.

Examples

Shopify has managed to slim down their form to just three fields making it appear more inviting and less time-consuming. There isn’t even a credit card field which eliminates the concern of having to put some form of payment upfront before even trying the product.

Kyle Rush led an interesting ObamaCare online campaign where they tested one full donation form vs. the same one that sequentially went through each question, but was ultimately the same length. The outcome was a 5% increase in conversion rate on it since users felt visually less overwhelmed when looking at the form.

Sometimes it all comes back to visual impact. If you chunk out the action in small bites so it's easy for visitors to complete, they may be more willing to do it.